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2	Summary In-class and after school presentations promote technology careers like optical engineering. Concept tested and refined in schools with students and teachers. Judged a success because of the “take-home theme packets.” Lessons may be created from theme packet concepts. Funding allows distribution of the “OPTICS Suitcase” to organizations interested in promoting technical career awareness.
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4	Objectives Offer an “easy to use” presentation for [optical] engineers to take into the classroom. Use optics as a vehicle to make science and technology interesting and accessible to people (students, teachers, parents, administrators) in Southern California Work with educators (including after school programs) to create exciting classroom lessons. Work with Southern California Optics Professionals and others to build on the “OPTICS Suitcase.” Secure Southern California funding for increased use and distribution of the “OPTICS Suitcase.”
5	“OPTICS Suitcase” for Middle School Outreach Almost everything fits in a plastic suitcase. Many items are reusable: the heating pad, the slinky, sheets of plastic polarizer material, the glass lens, the set of 7 overhead transparencies, etc. Some items are meant to be given away: the Periodic Table of the Elements. 225 “take-home theme packets” are included for ~3, twenty-five student classrooms. Larger groups can be accommodated with planning. A user guide explains how to do a 40 minute demo.
6	Technology Demos to Catch Their Attention
7	Optical Engineers Work with Materials That Reflect or Transmit Light
8	Take-Home Fact Sheet Highlights Optics Experiments Introduces speaker, job, and affiliation. Identifies any technology [like optical engineering] as a career opportunity. Defines what is important for success. Highlights the three experiments which follow in colorful terms. Serves as a take-home reminder of who you were and what you did at school.
9	Vivid Demonstrations to “Create” Color from White Light
10	Take-Home Theme Packet #1: Rainbow Peephole^® Light from the flashlight is “redirected” in passing through the plastic peephole to the eye. Where do the colors come from? Do you see a regular pattern? Identify the colors. Are they the same in each spot? Does the pattern change if the flashlight is close or far from the peephole? How? Do you see colors from other people's flashlights, even those far away from you? Do you see colors from the room lights? The regular array of bumps on the plastic peephole's surface allows us to see the color in white light through “diffraction.”
11	Night Spectra Quest This night is alive with lights whose spectra are different, intriguing, and beautiful. Help students learn how to tell different light sources apart by equipping them with this combination holographic diffraction grating (spectroscope) and pocket-sized spectra chart. Explore energy spectra from: Incandescent light Fluorescent light Mercury Metal halide Sodium Neon
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13	Light is Like a Vibrating Wave We can make a slinky vibrate like a wave of light. A slinky vibrating in one direction is like “polarized” light. Optical engineers use polarizers to make light vibrate in one direction. Polarizers have a “secret code.”
14	Take-Home Theme Packet #2: Magic Stripes Make a “polariscope” on the overhead projector and throw on some plastic tablewear to get their attention. Where do the colors come from? Make your own polariscope and find the stripes in the plastic foil. Examine the plastic cuvette and fork. What happens if you bend the tines of the fork? Geologists, identify minerals with polarized light microscopes. Civil engineers examine stresses inside structures with transparent models and a polariscope. Most lasers are polarized.
15	Take-Home Theme Packet #3: Magic Patch Place the patch on your wrist and perform the “vampire test.” The “Magic Patch” changes color with the heat from your body. The “living dead” give off no heat! Where do the colors come from? Does anyone see a vein or artery? This is an example of “selective reflection” by liquid crystals, painted onto the black paper. Liquid crystal are “ordered,” just like the students across the page. Scientists use liquid crystals to build displays for watches and computer games.
16	Selective Reflection in Cholesteric Liquid Crystals Within each layer, molecules (students) align with long axes (bodies) parallel to plane of layer. Protruding side groups force molecules in adjacent layers to be displaced, creating a twisted, helical structure.
17	For Doctors A Way to See Beneath the Skin
18	The Southern California Commitment